Brody Cress: The Wrestling Cowboy

"You gotta be able to react at the right time with horses. Same thing with wrestling."

When Brody Cress was six years old, his parents put him into wrestling, to help him in rodeo.

"Wrestling you're going against guys for six minutes and people don't understand how hard it is. Rodeo...you're going up against animals that are 1200 pounds or bigger so it just kinda goes hand in hand with each other in the mindset and the physical nature of it."

Wait, wait, wait. How does this, help for this?

"You gotta be able to react at the right time with horses, same thing with wrestling. That's why it's good, I've learned to finally not be too tense and stuff and where I can be able to react because on bucking horses you don't have that much time to make a move or make a mistake."

And that mindset has helped Cress in both sports, particularly wrestling, where he became a three time state champion at Cheyenne East.

"Yea there was a short time where I wanted to go wrestle maybe, but I wouldn't go to the big national tournaments that guys would and stuff like that because I'd have to go rodeo. So I wasn't getting looked at by big schools to wrestle."

But in his senior year of high school, despite collegiate offers, Cress chose to rodeo at Tarleton State instead.

"My coach really wanted me to go wrestle. He said 'you can be really good at this. I don't know how good you are at rodeo but you can be really good at this.' And I told him I can be great at rodeo though."

And he has been. Returning to a familiar building, the Casper Events Center, for the College National Finals Rodeo.

"I've done a lot in this building. I won all my state titles in this building not just high school but USA wrestling too so it's a big deal to be able to come here."

At CNFR, Cress won the Championship Short Go in Saddle Bronc, and finished 3rd overall. A culmination of what he's learned from both sports.

"You kinda just gotta trust your body and know what you need to do and let it happen."

So, yes. The skills learned in wrestling and rodeo are transferable. And in Brody Cress' case, can lead to greatness. Reporting in Casper, I'm Andrew Haubner. K2 Sports.